Foreword

1In the relatively short history of the Dutch occupation of the island of Mauritius (1638-1710, with a break in 1658-1664) Isaac Johannes Lamotius was a remarkable commander of the establishment of the Dutch East India Company (VOC). Not only was his period of rule the longest of all Dutch commanders (1677-1692) but it also had all of the tragedy that his predecessors were confronted with, only more so. No Dutch commander on Mauritius had ever had the number and the severity of problems like those Lamotius encountered. He had to deal with English intruders in the north-western harbour, constant conspiracies hatched by vrijburgers (freeburghers), slaves and even company servants, four grave epidemics, and personal loss, as his wife and child perished in flames when the company lodge burned down. The lack of co-operation from company officials in the Netherlands, at the Cape of Good Hope, and in Batavia, caused Lamotius to request to be relieved of his post several times, but this was not granted.

2The young Lamotius, who was appointed successor to commander Hubert Hugo, was an educated man. Born in 1646 in the Dutch town of Beverwijk, he was a promising choice of the directors of the Dutch East India Company. The southwestern Indian Ocean island of Mauritius was one of the smallest establishments of the VOC. In 1690 Lamotius’s staff consisted only of twenty-four company servants (including the garrison), seven convicts, and twenty-four slaves. Apart from this there were thirty-two vrijburgers on Mauritius. Lamotius started off as an excellent commander who took stern measures against the vrijburgers (after a short period in which he feasted and drank heavily with them) and did his utmost to turn Mauritius into a successful establishment. During the fifteen years of his command Lamotius gradually descended into despotism and immorality. In the end he was humiliated and sentenced for corruption, his downfall caused by one of his worst enemies, the former Cape lieutenant Jean-Baptiste Dubertin, whose pregnant wife was mistreated by Lamotius. Lamotius was tried and convicted in Batavia. Just as remarkable as his command of Mauritius had been, so were his years of hard labour in chains: the artist Lamotius appeared and his fine drawings from these years with the more numerous ones that he made in Mauritius – in all 93 sheets with 250 coloured marine animals – are published in this volume.

3The subject of Lamotius’s drawings offers no surprise. He had quickly become an expert on the flora and fauna of Mauritius, a fact known to his officials in The Netherlands. In his daily journal Lamotius-with his keen interest in Mauritian animals-used to describe exactly which animals and how many of them the hunters brought home each day. On several occasions their haul included dodos (Raphus cucullatus), a species already in decline but still present on the island. It can be proved that a few members of the species were still alive in Lamotius’s day, as the commander noted in his journals that his hunters had returned from the west (the interior) with dodaarsen (dodo’s) on various dates. The publication of these daily journals, the ones from 1685-1688 have survived, can shed more light on Lamotius’s days on Mauritius.

4The moment I was asked by the publisher to write a preface for this book I rejoiced. Finally the spectacular drawings of Isaac Lamotius, of which the value can hardly be overestimated, were to be published in full. It goes without saying that both authors of this work, Dr. Lipke B. Holthuis and Dr. Theodore W. Pietsch, have delivered an immensely important contribution, not only to natural history, but also to the history of the Dutch East India Company (VOC). Their eloquent research and interpretations of these late seventeenth century Dutch drawings have resulted in what will be a standard work from the day of its publication.